Bust of F. D. E. Schleiermacher
In 1829 the Berlin sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch (1777-1857) created a portrait bust dedicated to Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834). Schleiermacher had gone to Berlin in 1807 - after the closure of the University of Halle - and assumed some tasks in the parish as well as embarking on intensive academic activity. In their biography of Schleiermacher, Friedrich and Karl Eggers wrote (vol. 2, Berlin, 1878, p. 302) that his bust ‘was made on order of his parish and admirers into marble stone. It shows him wearing the robe and with a lenient and eloquent countenance nearly in frontal perspective with a very light clockwise rotation. The execution is brilliant and presents this bust as one of the best of its period.’ On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Schleiermacher’s birthday, the Berlin sculptor Heinrich August Walger (1829-1909) copied the bust of Rauch by order. The marble bust he created was erected in the great hall of the Alma Mater with the sponsorship of the university’s professors. A second bust, a plaster cast, was erected in the Theological Faculty in Halle.